by Anna Castle
The man stood at the center of the godly community in Cambridgeshire. Tom had visited the church in Babraham at least once a week, usually catching the parson’s fiery sermon even when he and Steadfast had been to hear the competition at another church five miles away. Preachers staggered their services to support this very habit. Then there were the Monday potluck suppers, the Wednesday evening study circles, and the Thursday morning early prayers. All in all, Tom had many opportunities to observe the traffic flowing through that plain white church. He’d recognized many men from the university and often seen horses in the yard that looked as if they’d come a distance.
He always remembered to check the knots, especially long reins neatly gathered up. He sometimes thought he’d looked at every knot within five miles of the Cambridge market square. Still no joy.
Today, he’d watched many men stroll up to greet Parson Wingfield and exchange a few words. They’d walk and talk, sing a hymn or two, then turn off at the next crossing path. Tom fixed every face in his memory while Steadfast supplied their names, assuming Tom was impressed by his father’s popularity. And indeed, Parson Wingfield drew followers like honeysuckle drew bees. Had they come to pay their respects on a fine afternoon? Not likely; few men would walk all the way out here just to disrupt a harmless tradition, and none of them was accompanied by wife or child.
Tom wished he could hear their talk but felt safer hanging back with the other boys for now. He had to admire the cleverness of the arrangement, holding private meetings out of doors under the eyes of two whole parishes.
***
At the next junction, John Barrow, who had been walking beside the parson for most of the morning, dropped back from the front row to fall into step with Tom and the Wingfield boys. His freckled face had picked up a touch of color from the sun. He draped a friendly arm over Tom’s shoulder, slowing the pace until they lagged a yard or two behind the others. “How are you, Tom?”
Tom was used to this question by now and knew how to answer it. “I’m struggling.” He grinned ruefully. “The fellowship makes me stronger.”
“A burden shared is a burden halved,” Barrow said.
“A day like today is worth a week of divinity lectures, if you want my honest opinion.”
“Your opinion is valued, Tom, never think it isn’t. You are important to us.” Barrow’s wide smile invited confidence. “Anything special you need to get off your chest?”
Tom felt a stab of alarm. What could he mean?
Before he could think of something neutral to say, Barrow added, “I know you’ve been working with Abraham Jenney lately. He’s as sound as a bell on matters divinical, but he can be a bit, well —”
“That he can.” Tom mustered a grin and got one in return. “I’m grateful he has time to tutor me, honestly, I am. I’m learning a lot. But I don’t think he’s ever wrestled with anything worse than a tendency to fall asleep when reading.”
“He does seem to be lucky that way. Though I believe I’ll be a better pastor to my flock for having strayed from the fold a time or two.” Barrow winked and clicked his tongue. “There’s no shame in feeling these impulses, Tom. The shame lies in surrendering to them. It’s a hard fight to win on your own though.”
Safe ground. Tom remembered the morning after his night in gaol, when they’d met Barrow’s lightskirts in Petty Cury Lane. “You’re absolutely right,” he said. “But it can be awkward in study group, with men who hardly ever even look at a woman . . .”
Barrow chuckled. “I thought that might be it. I’ll confess something to you, Tom. That’s my biggest challenge as well. Marriage is the surest cure, but what do we do until then?”
“Phew!” Tom let out a breath in a noisy rush. “I feel better for saying it out loud. Every week, I tell myself, this week I will be chaste. But somehow by Friday, I’ve fallen into sin again. Next week, I say; not this one.”
“‘Grant me chastity and continence, but not yet?’“ Barrow quoted. “It isn’t easy to resist the lure — or should I say, the allure — of a willing woman. Or a pink scarf in an upstairs window.”
A chill sliced through Tom like an icy rapier. Too stunned to speak, he struggled for some response that wouldn’t betray him further.
Barrow watched him out of the corner of his eye for a long moment. Then he relented, granting him a wry half smile. “That signal is known only to a select few. She usually has the sense to choose senior Fellows who will be on their way in a year or two.”
Tension flowed out of Tom’s body as he realized Barrow must be among the select. “I promise you right here, right now, Mr. Barrow, I will give her up, just as soon as —”
“As soon as you can break it to her kindly. I understand. It isn’t easy.” Barrow clapped him on the back. “Don’t wait too long, my friend. She’s a snare.”
How would he know about the scarf, if not from experience? That was an interesting item Tom could add to his next confession to Bacon. He wondered if he could find a verse about snares anywhere in the Bible.
Barrow nodded toward the Wingfield children walking together in the middle of the group. “I know something else that might help. There’s a pretty girl up there who’s been wanting to walk with you all day. You’d be hard-pressed to find a godlier lass.”
***
Abstinence. Every time Tom looked into those sweet blue eyes, he fell into a vision of a rose-covered cottage with her at the gate, holding a baby with the Clarady dimple in its cherubic cheek. She was built for marriage and children and making a man happy. He couldn’t look at her without being filled with lusty thoughts, but she was innocent. Besides, how could you court a woman while working to send her father to the Tower?
“There you are, Thomas Clarady,” she purred as Tom matched his pace to hers. “You’ve been avoiding me today.”
“No, I haven’t.”
“I think you like my brothers better than me.”
“No,” Tom said with perfect sincerity. “I do not. Besides, you’ve spent half the morning walking with John Barrow.”
She smiled and ducked her head, tucking the pink tip of her tongue between her lips. The gesture was demure and enticing in a stroke and never failed to set his heartstrings thrumming. “My father thinks well of him, so I am courteous, as I hope I am always obedient.”
“I thought your sister was Obedient.”
She frowned. Tom chided himself. Don’t make fun of their names. However absurd they might sound to outsiders, these people took their names very seriously.
The parson called out, “Exaltation comes!” and they all began to sing, “For exaltation comes neither from the east nor from the west nor from the south.”
Tom joined in with gusto. He loved singing out of doors, especially walking along a grassy path under a clear sky, and even more especially with a beautiful girl walking beside him. Her hair smelled of rosemary and oil soap. The exercise under the bright sun had dampened her linen partlet so it clung with admirable fidelity to the upper curves of her breasts. Sometimes their shoulders touched; sometimes the back of her hand brushed his. Once she tripped on a tussock and stumbled against him. He had to place his hands firmly around her slender waist to set her aright. She rewarded him with that head-ducking smile and a teasing glimpse of her tongue.
Intelligencing had its good days and its bad, Tom had learned. This was one of the best.
They paused at the corner of the field while Sawston’s rector said his piece. Parson Wingfield launched into an ad extempore discourse on Deuteronomy. “He made him draw honey from the rock, and oil from the flinty rock.” The Sawston musicians tried to drown him out, but they hadn’t the strength left in them.
The procession moved on to the end of the field where a boundary oak stood, covered with the green fuzz of newly sprouting leaves. It had probably been planted when these fields were first laid out. Now its trunk was lumpy with galls and twisted with age, host to plantations of moss. Its wide-spreading limbs overhung a regular resting place
on the road; the ground beneath was muddy and well trampled. Other evidence of horses lay scattered here and there in odorous clumps.
The Sawston party moved on after a cursory marking of the tree, eager to lose their uninvited entourage and take refuge in the Saracen’s Head tavern. Parson Wingfield stopped under the tree, removed his tall hat, and mopped his brow with a white handkerchief. His followers took advantage of the break to pass around a jug and air their own overheated pates.
Tom saw a man on horseback leaning forward in animated conversation with another man standing beside the tree. He recognized the horseman as Simon Thorpe. What could he be doing way out here? He wandered over to ask him. Abstinence wandered with him, as naturally as if she were his girl already. Steadfast followed them.
The two men barely glanced their way, they were so intent on their talk, which did not sound friendly. The stranger was a prosperous yeoman, solidly framed with a neat brown beard. He was dressed for Rogation Days, not for labor, in green hose and a doublet trimmed with red braid. His garb was festive, but his face was dark with anger.
“Hallo, Simon,” Tom called cheerily. “Come out for a breath of country air?”
“That’s Mr. Thorpe to you, Clarady. Must I remind you that I am your tutor?” His whiny tone undermined his message. The man simply lacked authority. “I am conducting college business.” He flicked a glance at Abstinence and sniffed. “I don’t care to know what you are doing.”
The yeoman made a sour face. “They’re here to heckle us as we go about our own parish affairs. Best to ignore them. And don’t change the subject, Thorpe. Our matter is far from settled.” He tilted his head to direct his talk to Tom and his friends. “Why don’t you zealous busybodies sing a psalm about greedy bursars extorting fines from honest tenants a full six months before their lease expires?”
Tom raised his eyebrows at Steadfast and Abstinence. They shrugged. Tom turned back to the yeoman. “We don’t know that one. Could you give us the first few lines?”
The yeoman’s ears turned red. Thorpe tittered.
Fair was fair. Tom looked him straight in the eye and raised a pious finger. “One Timothy, chapter three, verse eight: ‘Likewise bursars must be reverent, not double-tongued, not given to much wine, not greedy for money.’“
Steadfast chuckled and added, “James, chapter five, verse four: ‘Indeed, the wages of the laborers who mowed your fields, which you kept back by fraud, cry out.’“
The yeoman burst into great guffaws of laughter, slapping his thighs. Thorpe’s eyes narrowed to slits.
Tom rummaged in his memory to send another round at the yeoman, but Abstinence beat him to it. Piping up in her dulcet tones, she said, “Matthew, chapter twenty-two, verse twenty-one: ‘Render therefore to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and to God the things that are God’s.’“
Tom gazed at her in wonder, over flooded with loving admiration. How many women could rise so limberly to the occasion and grasp a man’s aims so firmly, adding that crucial thrust that brings the whole effort to a satisfying head?
A country knave who was the spit of the yeoman strode up with a young woman wearing a garland in her hair. A pair of sturdy lads followed close behind them. “Are these lot pestering you, Da?” The knave curled his lip at them.
Tom granted him a thin smile. If he was looking for trouble, he wouldn’t have far to look. Tom had not been getting enough exercise lately.
Neither had Steadfast. The lad was bred for farm work, not for sitting on his duff pushing a quill. He smiled his brightest Gospel-preaching smile and said, “Isaiah, chapter fifty-six, verse eleven: ‘Yes, they are greedy dogs, which never have enough. And they are shepherds, who cannot understand; they all look to their own way, every one for his own gain, from his own territory.’“ He punctuated each clause by making chopping motions with his right hand.
Abstinence faced the garlanded girl with her hands on her hips. She tilted up her chin and said, “Proverbs one, verse twenty-two: ‘How long, ye simple ones, will ye love simplicity? And the scorners delight in their scorning, and fools hate knowledge?’“
“I’ll give you knowledge,” the girl said, shaking her fist. “Whyn’t you prattling busybodies go back to your own parish? What d’ye mean, coming over here and quarreling with our festival?” She reached out her hand and gave Abstinence a push.
Abstinence pushed her back, just a touch, enough to show she wouldn’t let herself be shoved about. The girl took another turn, this time putting some weight behind it. Abstinence stumbled backward, stepped on the hem of her skirt, and stumbled again, lurching against Tom.
He heard her growl under her breath and smiled in approval. The girl had courage; she just lacked training. As he set her upright, he murmured into her ear, “Keep your weight centered over both feet. Don’t lean forward; it pulls you off balance.”
She looked up at him as if she were seeing him — really seeing him — for the first time. Then she grinned, not one of her coy little smiles, but a real, cheek-splitting grin. Tom felt a sudden stab in his chest and knew it for what it was: Cupid’s arrow. She’d felt it too.
He gave her a nudge. “Make me proud.” That was what his father had always said to him under similar circumstances.
Abstinence nodded once and turned back to her opponent with fresh determination. She took a step forward. So did the other girl.
“That’s enough right there.” The yeoman’s son stepped between the two girls and grabbed Abstinence by the shoulder, turning her around, apparently meaning to march her toward the middle of the road. He laid his other hand on the curve of her well-rounded backside. Then he stupidly — if understandably — squeezed.
Abstinence said, “Eep!”
Steadfast’s fist rocketed past her and landed smack on the knave’s jaw.
The next thing Tom knew, everyone was shoving someone, and balls of horseshit were flying as thick as the curses and the Bible verses. He heard a whinny and saw Thorpe steering his horse out of the way. He lost sight of him when he was forced to block the yeoman’s fist to stop it from rearranging his nose. He got a whiff of starch from the man’s freshly laundered ruff as he clasped him in a choke hold. The yeoman hooked his leg around Tom’s knee and pulled them both into the mud, where he rolled across the hem of a skirt and heard a howl as its wearer lost her footing and fell, bringing three others down like a row of bowling pins.
And folks said Puritans had no sense of fun.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
“Don’t even think of entering our chambers in that condition.” Philip happened to be crossing the yard as Tom came through the gate. His mouth twisted, his expression one of horror and disgust.
Who could blame him? Tom’s face, hair, and beard were as brown as his doublet and he had a thick smear of fresh green horseshit straight up his left side. “I guess I am a bit of a mess,” he said. “We got into a bit of a brawl out there. It was fairly hailing balls of shit for a while.”
Philip shuddered. “I loathe fighting. And I hate to get dirty.”
“Huh.” An unfathomable philosophy. “I find it refreshing now and again,” Tom said. “It’s like a purgative for an excess of mental strain.” He wondered if physicians ever recommended the occasional brawl as a counter for a surfeit of study. Probably not. “I’ll just dash up for clean clothes and go straight out again to the bathhouse on Mill Street.”
“Don’t touch anything,” Philip said. He walked on toward the gatehouse.
As Tom approached his door, he spotted the pink scarf being placed in the window of the master’s parlor. He scratched at his mud-caked beard. He would far rather have his back scrubbed by Mrs. Eggerley’s clever hands than ply a long-handled brush in a public tub. He had promised Mr. Barrow he would break things off with her. Why wait? This could be their farewell tryst.
The scarf jigged up and down, waved by an unseen hand. She must have been watching him through a gap in the curtains.
He ran up to his room and got so
me fresh clothes out of his large chest. Then he went back down, across the corner of the yard, into the hall, and straight out the south door. Margaret wouldn’t thank him for tracking muck through her stylish gallery, not even across the paint-spotted drop cloths. Better to use the servants’ door at the back. He sprinted up the winding stairs on the balls of his feet.
She met him at the top, recoiling as she caught the full force of his condition. “Oh, Tom! What have you been doing?” She swept her left hand up, palm out. “Don’t tell me! I do not want to hear one single word until you’re fit for civilized conversation.”
She took his bundle and directed him to wait in the garderobe. One whiff of that stale closet and he went to sit on the stairs. He had to shift back again a few minutes later when the door at the bottom opened. Peering down, he saw the top of a laundryman’s head with a large cask on his shoulder. The voice of another behind him echoed up the brick well.
He closed the lid over the hole, which helped a little, and sat. While he waited, breathing shallowly through his mouth with his fingers pinching his nose, he tried to sort out what he could say to Margaret. She’d been a sort of neutral ground, aligned with neither his masters nor his targets. When he entered her chambers, he left his commission outside. They would both feel the loss. Tom couldn’t come up with anything that wouldn’t be too blunt or too feeble.
His mind wandered. He found himself wondering why horseshit should smell so much better than manshit. A horse was bigger by a large margin and hotter by nature as well. Something to do with hay versus meat, presumably, although few things smelled more delicious than a joint of beef roasting on a spit. He pondered that conundrum for a while, then stopped himself with shake of the head. “God’s bollocks! I’m turning into Francis Bacon!”